HIV & AIDS
During the last decade, the proportion of children are orphaned as a result of AIDS rose from 3.5% and will continue to increase exponentially as the disease spreads unchecked.
There are 34 million orphans in the region today and some 11 million of them are orphaned by AIDS.
During 2011 alone, an estimated 1.2 million adults and children died as a result of AIDS-related illnesses in sub- Saharan Africa.
In many countries of sub-Saharan Africa, aids has erased decades of progress made in extending life expectancy. average life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa is now 54.4 years and in the most heavily affected countries in the region life expectancy is below 49 years.
HIV and AIDS dramatically affect labor, setting back economic and social progress. The vast majority of people living with HIV in Africa are between the ages of 15 and 49, in the prime of their working lives.
In many countries of sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS is erasing decades of progress in extending life expectancy.
In the worst affected countries, average life expectancy has fallen by twenty years because of the epidemic.
The life expectancy at birth in Swaziland, which has the highest HIV prevalence in the world, is just 48.7 years.